The Man

By kiki

One Saturday night in the summer of 1953, I was on my way to hang out with my friends at Nacho's Pool Hall on Date Street in Simons, really South Montebello; I drove out of Pico and through the Montebello Gardens. As I drove out of the Gardens and onto Whittier Blvd, I saw a red light in my rearview mirror. But, of course, that was nothing new for me. Chicano teenagers were constantly being pulled over by the Man in their black and white's for no reason other than we were Chicanos.

No problem, I thought; I am legal, and the car's registration was up to date, no insurance, though, in those years, insurance was not required to register a vehicle. So I pulled over to the curb. I waited for the Man in his nice uniform to tell me that he had stopped me because of a broken car taillight or that I didn't have a light on the rear license plate; that was their standard excuse for stopping us Chicano teenagers back in the '50s: or maybe he would write me up a ticket for whatever reason he wanted to, which I didn't really mind because I never paid them anyway. But, no, I didn't see the Man in his nice uniform. Instead, I saw two men wearing ill-fitted rumple suits and cheap ties sprinkled with donut crumbs and jelly flashing their badges as they walked up to each front door of my 1938 four-door Chevy. "Get out and stand against that wall," one rumple suit yelled at me in a threatening voice while pointing to a store wall. I was just a sixteen-year-old guy, and yes, I was shaking in my worn-out shoes as I made my way to the wall. As I was standing against the wall, one rumple suit proceeded to trash my car by taking the rear seat out and throwing it on the sidewalk; the other rumple suit opened the trunk and threw everything I had in there onto the curb. They continue to trash my car while mumbling to themselves. I finally found my voice as a small crowd started to gather and asked one of the rumpled suits, "What are you guys doing" as if I didn't know, "looking for drugs" one rumple suit answered, "well, you wasting your time because I don't do drugs" I retorted. After checking my car and not finding even one tiny roach, the rumple suits jumped on their ride and drove off into the night as I yelled at them, "Hey, how about putting my car back together?" The small crowd laughed!

Once I made my way to the pool hall, things didn't improve as I lost all but one of the games I played. We would play for a quart, a game, a quart. Sure, but remember, in the early '50s, a quart would buy you a pack of  Pall Malls and maybe a beer…Those were the days of innocence, or so I thought!